After hearing marcocolo's Torii III with Jupiter Beeswax Copper capacitors at the fest, I thought I would give them a try and picked up a very closely matched quad.  I was previously running VCaps.

Can anyone with some experience with these caps comment on the time for them to season?  Differences between copper and aluminum?

Here are my very early first impressions versus the VCaps (+ or -).  It will be interesting to see how these change:

Neutrality +      
 -Less warm vs VCaps (this was primarily what I was after)
 -Perhaps a bit tipped to the upper end

Transparency+
 -Not a huge amount, but noticeable

Bass impact+
 -I was surprised by this

Bass definition –
-Seems a little muddy right now

Mid-Range +
 -Goes back to neutrality, but this is where it is perhaps tipped up
 - but what's there is quite smooth

High Shimmer +
 -Very nice cymbals

Soundstage –
 -Seems a little contracted right now.  I am hoping this opens up a little more

Overall sense of air –
 -See above

Overall I am feeling pretty good about these but would appreciate any comments.

I believe so.  .1uf 600V

Lon, do you recall if the mids leveled out a little?  Did the bass tighten up?  Did the soundstage open up a little more?

I thought I read some comparison here on aluminum vs copper beeswax but I can't find it.

I have not heard the copper either but have aluminum HTs. There seem to be some happy folks with the copper!

I think everything you are hearing makes sense with the burnin of a decent cap or tube. The low mid to bass is usually the slowest to develop (or should I say the most obviously undeveloped) as the refinement across the spectrum comes out. I can't remember exactly, but I have 400-600 hours in my mind for the HT to fully develop.

My real test with beeswax caps was my Zstage, fully burned in and then a cap change. I had the same experience as Lon, good sound at first, but what came later was pretty notable, the obvious sound becoming subtle with more complex and refined information. So these qualities you are missing due to yet incomplete delivery of micro information will improve notably.

Something I have also seen repeatedly with my Toriis...if something like a tube or cap pumps up the bass region and things are on the edge of tolerance in your room/system, it can go from just right toward muddled pretty easily. So the bass problem could be that the caps are not broken in, or that they are providing added bass, or both.

Good news. I think that slight emphasis on the midrange may stay, it's sort of what I have with the caps in my amp and preamps. And works in my system.

I think 30 hours is just giving a good glimpse of what you can expect. Though our HTs are very open and articulate in the mids, I wouldn't call them lacking in neutrality, more very revealing. I suspect everything will become more liquid, textural and refined as edges become more complex, including the mids.

I had a great listening session last night.  Regen + Jupiters = great detail in the notes and more body to each note.  They occupy more "space."  I was pretty impressed with the bass.  

Soundstage is back to huge.

My only concern now is the soundstage started being more to the back of the room with the Jupiters when I first put them in and now on some songs its right on top of me.  Nice to be engulfed in the music, but a little too close for comfort on some songs.

I am listening to classical right now and its fine so maybe just certain recordings.

One more observation / experience to more or less close out my comments for the time being on this thread.  

Last night I listened to a variety of live music.  I think that this is the kind of music that these caps plus the regen make really shine.  The openness and transparency of the caps is heightened by the regen, which makes for a very well defined front to back soundstage.  

One album I listened to was Sara Bareilles, Live at the Variety Playhouse.  While I will admit, this is the audio equivalent of a chick flick, it is probably the best live recording that I have.  

There is typically only her vocal and one other instrument, so it’s not like you have multiple layers.  The effect relays more the size of the hall and it is really a standout recording as far as live music goes.

I have been seeking this kind of front to back soundstage via room treatments for some time now.  I have always had a wall of sound behind the speakers.  Now it is more 3-D.  A very nice, “you are sitting in the hall” feeling from this and quite easy to close your eyes and get wrapped up in it.

So I continue to experiment with things to improve my sound.  I believe these caps and the regen were a winner for around $400.

Yes, now I think you are getting the "stage" that is on the recordings, the Jupiter caps I am using are good at that.

The "3D" stage is what I love so much coming from Decware's omni-directional speakers. The ERRs are champions at this, and the HR-1s have an amazing blend of protruding and recessed stage information. I tend to put my speakers a bit closer together (to one another) and further into the room which catalyzes this stage orientation for me. That "depth" is addictive.

I have always had good depth behind the speakers.  It was soundstage in front of the speakers I lacked.  Everything was pretty much behind.

Now I am more enveloped in sound which is great for these live performances.  That is primarily a Regen thing, I think because I picked that up before the caps.  Not that the caps don't help in this regard but they mostly add transparency and detail to the mix.

It's a nice combo.  Eric if you zen'd out before on Alt J, you will go into a musical coma now.

Lonely Raven wrote on 10/30/15 at 20:29:14:

Cool, that's a great experience, I have this too perhaps not in the same quantity, I don't know, I'm not that much a "stage" hound. This is all better when the Jupiter caps were installed in the Torii (and I have them in my CSP2+ as well, one day probably I'll have them in the ZP3).

When I listen to recordings I made in my garage apartment of the 'eighties instruments are very specifically placed in what I perceive as positions within that space. .. I know all that stuff--instruments, equipment, players, room--well. I've never heard this so fully with any other equipment than the Decware speakers and amps and the PS Audio components. Life is good.

Raven: Quote:


Interesting. I have never heard a dropout in the middle so can't relate. But I like ambient information as a guide too. It remains a primary listening tool for refining my system/room. I learned about it from Eric Hider when they were developing the Tranquility DAC. They found the fine information a critical indicator for extracting all that Rebook had, finding 44/16 contained much more than most folks thought back then...plenty to sound alive and smooth... "analog"... if carefully revealed. With that fine information came so much more.

Here the ambience has no boundaries that I can tell, though I do hear more in front of me where the instruments are than behind. But the trails go all around including behind, and continue well beyond the walls. Feeling like being in the room of the players is enhanced by this spacial ambience, but the local stuff, the ambient info around each player is pretty huge too for me. I stopped trying to locate sound to the speakers...they look like props.

Fine information, including ambience and harmonics are what I was talking about in terms of solving limitations to transparency and open spaciousness. If the system and room are not limiting or overly altering what is available from the recording, complex ambient information seems to be naturally present.

Quote:


Ambience of the space created in the recording has always been natural sounding here, but it can be better or worse depending on how revealing my system is tuned. Hearing recorded space wall reflections shows up when it is there. I usually find it a little distracting but it does indicate that the system is not limiting potential.

Ambience filling the areas around players and fading in all directions, sort of without boundaries have been normal for me without any normal diffusers. But then I do have a lot of natural diffusion from the way my room is made; some traps and absorbers in non-obtrusive, non-traditional locations; lots of various electronic noise mitigation and vibration mitigation (pretty big players); and some other sound clarifying tools you probably doubt the reality of.

Quote:


I think I understand now, the “wall” indicating no space in the musical presentation, the ambience filling in between and around the players? I guess "a wall of sound behind the speakers" suggests being more linear to me than 3D so I was a little confused.

Pal: Quote:


Sounds good! Does that mean there are players in front of the speakers? Here for the most part I only hear the singers and ambient/spacial information in front.

Pal…please remind me which of the Decware speakers your DIY speakers most closely resemble?

I'm curious what you think of and experience with the following live recordings:

Ryan Adams - Live at Carnegie Hall
Patricia Barber - Companion (Recorded live at the Green Mill)
Yo-Yo Ma - The Cello Suites, Inspired by Bach (Suite No. 1 in G Major for Cello, Recorded at Jordan Hall)

I have to say that I do believe these caps are getting better with some hours as Will suggested they would.  I'm really enjoying them.  I obviously can't do an A/B comparison given its been a while but I do notice differences that have appeared over time.

Just one example from tonight.  Stevie Ray Vaughn Tin Pan Alley.  The song has a lot of rim shots in it.  They have a more crisp impact now and the echo on the rim shot now goes significantly deeper behind the snare.  A little thing, I know but its the little things that add up with these caps to give a more enjoyable experience.

If you haven't heard it, try the cd and DVD (especially) of "Trinity Revisited". . . I prefer it to the original cd myself.

Palomino wrote on 11/23/15 at 20:31:14:


I really recommend it. Vic Chestnut is on it too (and the best of the guests). The guests really help, and time with the material also helps deepen the songs. Sound is very good too, especially the hi-res DVD.

I have had the cyro'd beeswax Jupiter's in my Torii MK.3 for over a year now.  I found them to improve upon the stock caps at the frequency extremes and in "refinement" of the overall sound.  I think they were well worth the $$$.  

Steve told me at Zenfest this year, that the UFO transformers were likely to be offered as an upgrade to Torii owners in the future.....  I can only imagine what those would do for my MK.3, which is the best amp I have ever heard on crossoverless, high-efficiency, full-ranger speakers - bar none - cost no object.  They will have to pry this amp out of my cold, dead hands....!!

I have 3 sets of audio nirvana full-rangers.  Super cast frame 12" Alnico's in a 5.6 cu.ft. box.  And I just completed an OB with Audio Nirvana SCF 15" ferrites, with Hawthorne Augie's filling in the bottom end in a Hawthorne Trio baffle.  
And I have a pair of 12" Ferrites sitting around waiting for my next project... along with the original Hawthorne PSI coaxial's out of the Trio's. These are just my DIY's.  I also have some Decware 945's, vintage Klipsch and a pair of Martin Logan Vista's and a few others.  I really need to reduce inventory - so I can get something else!   . So many projects...... so little time....

The Audio Nirvana's work well with a Torii 3 IMO - best I've ever heard for my ears, preferences, etc..  When I made the leap to crossoverless full-rangers, I took a quantum leap toward the holy grail of "you are there" or "they are here" to my ears.  I don't anticipate going back to speakers with crossovers anytime in the near future.  All those passive components in series with the drivers, just sucks so much detail and life out of the music.... I didn't realize it, until I heard it with my own ears, over and over and over in multiple rooms at RMAF about 3 years ago, that had single-driver speakers and mostly flea-watt SET amps.  I came away on a mission to attain that "type of sound", without a second mortgage.  Audio Nirvana and Decware got me there.  I have never been more content to just focus on music and forget the system and the constant upgrade merry-go-round.

Yep Mr. Dicks can be a little "confrontational" if you challenge his opinions.  I actually visited him at his place and listened to his speakers before I bought my first pair.  He is very confident of his products ranking in the world of audio - #1.  If you challenge his opinion, you will get an immediate defensive response at a minimum.  We had some "tense" moments, but overall he was a very gracious host and sometimes we just had to agree to disagree.  
I learned some things from him, that go against conventional wisdom.  Like you have to have some complex TL enclosure for a single, full-range driver to make bass, etc. Nope... you don't.  I put the SCF 12" Alnico's in one of his recommended simple bass reflex boxes, and they sound superb, and they make all kinds of mid-bass, with a very "flesh on the bones", meaty sound - if you drive them with a Torii (or other current source output amp <-- this is the magic potion for the impedance curve of these types of drivers). Just don't use pink fiberglass for dampening material like he suggests..!!  Line the box with about a 1/2" of all natural cotton/wool felt - all of the cabinet.  And put about a pound of cleaned, combed, all natural wool from Madisound Speaker Components behind the driver.  I've found this wool from Madisound to be the finest, sonically speaking, speaker dampening material on the planet - been using it for years on all DIY's and mods to purchased speakers.  It has a profound effect on making the mid-range sound "natural" and has completely eliminated "honk" and the mid-range, cupped-hands "awk" that is present in nearly every box speaker I've ever heard, to at least some extent, some quite dramatically so.  There are times you won't even know how bad it is, until it's "gone".  I have been mostly a boxless speaker fan/owner for a couple of decades, so I tend to be very sensitive to any sound caused by "the box" of a conventional speaker.

If you want to "talk shop" some more or share our experiences, send me a PM.